


The Real Me

by Scrib_hneoir



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Dissociation, F/M, let me know if I need to tag anything more I'm being bad at this, or something like that I think, rape mention, yandere!yoosung
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 02:09:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8826178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrib_hneoir/pseuds/Scrib_hneoir
Summary: Such a small threaded wall… A small thing so quickly gone… A small thing he had built around the side him everyone had always told him couldn’t be there. The him no one imagined could possibly exist — not in his small, shining, sunny smile… what darkness could possibly reside behind that?“None,” they all said.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Art trade with [Mid](http://midlangley.tumblr.com/post/154392416463/art-trade-with-cthulhus-daughter-a-talented)!! the trade piece is actually in the writing, btw!! sdlajsdlkj her art is really good and beautiful. her original [yandere!yoosung](http://midlangley.tumblr.com/post/151585425897/yandere-yoosung-is-my-aesthetic) is what inspired this piece :D  
>   
> note: this is based off of the universe created in my MM apocalypse AU novel [a new sky](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8471290/chapters/19409710) (so it's like... a canon-divergence of that almost lol. in that novel Yoosung would not actually go this much yandere)  
>   
> ALSO feel free to point out typos and stuff I wrote this at like 4am and then edited it on 5 hours of sleep.... lmao....  
> (psst listened to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbQgXeY_zi4) on repeat while writing (music video: tw blood, violence))

When she went missing, they all wanted to send someone else. Jaehee, who could only wield a sniper rifle, suggested Jumin, because he was proficient with two guns and could get in and out with few sustained injuries. Zen, still wounded from the last bandit encounter, suggested Vanderwood, because they were the smartest in situations like this and could get in and out fast. Seven suggested himself, because he was at least improv-smart at the very least _and_ knew the territory where MC had been taken.

No one suggested Yoosung nor acknowledged his, albeit lackluster, skill with a grenade launcher. Yet that wasn’t even what really bothered him — what really got under his skin was that no one thought _he_ should be the one to go. MC was the one in love with him, not them. Why did they all take like MC was _they’re_ special someone? She wasn’t theirs… she was Yoosung’s…

So in the dead of night, him on watch so everyone else could rest up for the rescue mission, he took his bag of food and supplies, a gun and bullets, and slipped into the cold world beyond the burnt walls of their current hide-out. Seven had deciphered the ransom note, figuring out that the numbers on the bottom of the paper were latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates. The place wasn’t too far from their own hideout, so finding his way there and back would be no problem.

Under the blanket of night, the world looked just that much more eerie. Everything had become so dark since the nuclear bomb hit the outskirts of the city about a month ago, the fallout covering the world like hell’s snow, the formally towering buildings knocked over like a child’s Lego set. Yoosung had thought, one time, what the world might look like without so many people, but now the city was exactly like that: some kind of perpetual four-AM hour of quietude and loneliness.

The kidnapper’s hideout popped into view: windows dimly lit by dying candles, the only light breaking the blanket of night. Tip-toeing over to a broken piece of wall, Yoosung knelt behind it to survey the remaining distance, eyes peeled for any movement -

“Yoosung?”

He all but jumped out of his skin, whirling around and nearly hitting his head on the rock. “S-Seven?”

Seven was grinning. “Thought you might sneak out. I know you too well.”

Yoosung could only frown. “I suppose you do… but why follow, then?”

Seven patted Yoosung’s shoulder, such a friendly gesture in contrast to clearly having no faith that Yoosung could save his own lover. “Because I wanted to make sure you’d be alright and help out, ya know? I care about MC, too, we all do.” He paused to nervously scratch the side of his face, something Yoosung couldn’t remember him ever doing. “Actually, I’m a bit jealous that she fell for you, but you two are good for each other. Still.” He smiled his familiar smile, but in Yoosung’s eyes it now only looked malicious and condescending. “I’m glad you too are happy together.”

 _“She should have fallen for me,”_ were the words his eyes were saying. Yoosung could tell.

Quietly, his thought process snapped.

Such a small threaded wall… A small thing so quickly gone… A small thing he had built around the side him everyone had always told him couldn’t be there. The _him_ no one imagined could possibly exist — not in his small, shining, sunny smile… what darkness could possibly reside behind that?

 _“None,”_ they all said.

“Yeah, right, of course,” Yoosung said, knowing he sounded unconvincing, his smile clearly fake, but Seven still fell for it — so easily, since Seven was looking at MC and not Yoosung, no one ever looked at Yoosung. To them, he may as well not even be there.

“So, shall we?” Seven said, still smiling, gesturing for Yoosung to make the first move towards the danger zone.

Yoosung nodded, feeling his fake smile burn. “Of course.”

And he hadn’t expected the gunshot to be so loud, but in hindsight it made sense. It startled both them, but at least Yoosung could recover faster, having known it was coming, his own finger the one pulling the trigger — Seven was still staring, smile slipping into shock and, a moment later, pain. After everything had connected under that pretty-red hair of his, he slid to his side, clutching his wounded hand close to his chest.

“Yoo-Yoosung?” he stammered, betrayal in his voice, but not nearly as much as what Yoosung felt having heard his best friend confess to being in love with his own girlfriend.

“ _I’ll_ save MC,” Yoosung snapped darkly, feeling a warm growing at the base of his spine, baring off the otherwise cold night. “And anyone who tries to get between us is going to die.”

“Yoosung… Yoosung I didn’t - ”

He pulled the trigger again, this time aiming for Seven’s other hand. Yoosung’s foggy mind couldn’t completely connect the whys and wherefores he chose to shoot Seven’s hands — Yoosung knew what it now meant for Seven, but he couldn’t seem to explain his own choices to himself.

Standing, he grabbed his bag and left Seven there to weep quiet tears of pain. Yoosung knew he wouldn’t bleed out, Seven was too smart to die here, and as much as Yoosung wanted to land a third bullet between Seven’s eyes, he also didn’t know how many he’d need for the kidnapper.

At least that’s what he told himself.

The door to the small warehouse was unlocked, likely because the kidnapper was waiting. MC was there, as promised, and so was the kidnapper: a woman older than Yoosung. Mostly, he was surprised a random woman was the villain here. Yoosung had been expecting a vengeful bandit or even someone from Mint Eye… yet this woman looked unaffiliated with either. Her dark hair was hanging like seaweed around her dirt-smudged face, pupils dilated from several different drugs, her hands also shaking, likely from thalidomide than fear.

Her face broke into a disappointed grin when she made eye-contact with Yoosung, and it reminded him so much of Seven’s off-hand comments whenever Yoosung was seriously upset with something. Grinning and laughing at Yoosung giving him a disappointed look. _“You’re so cute when you get angry! I should tease you more often,”_ Seven might sing, dancing away, Honey Buddha Chips in hand, giggling like the teasing sadist he was.

Perhaps it had started there: all those tiny, simple frustrations building up into the monster now seeping from his every pore at the sight of the woman standing before him. Who even was she? Was she the one Vanderwood had been chasing? The woman who had shot Zen? The one with rose-petals falling from her mouth like blood - ?

A grayness was creeping in on the edges of Yoosung’s vision. The woman was laughing. “I wait all this time and it’s just you? Not that bastard _Seven_? Or that freak _Vanderwood_? I get a fucking child who can’t even work a gun?”

_“I wait all this time and it’s just you—all this time and it’s just you—and it’s just you—just you - ”_

Yoosung’s hands balled into fists as his vision tunneled. It was almost scary, but more so it was… comforting. A warmth spread from the base of his spine and the feeling was more like home than the cold fear he usually felt. Perhaps because he could envision all too well how this woman’s body would come apart if he pressed his fingers in the right places, which pressure points would make her bleed the most, which nerves would let her feel every pinpoint of pain, let her feel the pain he felt right now as she slid her hands down MC’s cheeks and neck, stroking her throat like some kind of lover -

 _Disgusting._ No one was allowed to touch MC except for _him_ — wasn’t that the conclusion they had both come to all that time ago? Sitting alone around a small fire in an eerie abandoned toy store as she cried because the stuffed animals reminded her of her long-lost childhood.

_“Can… can I touch you?”_

_“Y-yes. I wouldn’t want anyone else to.”_

MC was shivering in the chair, blindfolded, hands tied behind her back, feet bound to the legs of the chair, pretty amber hair yanked back in one of the woman’s hands.

“Let her go,” Yoosung snarled, “she’s - ”

“Yours?” the woman interrupted. “You know, she’s already become more mine than yours now,” she murmured, almost too quiet to hear. “Just too cute to resist, isn’t she? So hard to find someone so untouched by the filth of this new world.”

Yoosung raised the gun with steady hands.

“Ohh, is the little boy gonna shoot me?” the woman sneered, face twisted into a mocking pout. “ _Good_. It’ll be nice to finally die without pulling the trigger myself like some kind of coward.”

Just like that, Yoosung lowered the gun and tilted his head to the side with an almost innocent expression. “Then… killing you would let you win anyway?” he inquired, almost innocently.

For the first time, the woman seemed to hesitate. “Why—why _wouldn’t_ you kill me? I—I fucking _defiled_ your precious lover, and look at her!” She yanked MC’s head up, pushing unwashed hair aside. “She’s not even that pretty! What even makes her worth it?!”

Yoosung dropped his bag and bent to pull things out, confident he wouldn’t be blindsided. This woman clearly craved death, which would make her stupid, allowing Yoosung to do anything he wanted for revenge. So he took his time withdrawing his pair of surgical scissors and a syringe of a hyperalgesic compound, something he had found when they had raided the hospital for medical supplies. He hadn’t told anyone, Jumin would have just taken it away and Seven would have made fun of him and Jaehee -

The woman started laughing. “You think a little pair of scissors is going to be able to - ?”

“Of course not,” Yoosung said, his voice calm despite the humming in his blood. When he looked up, the woman’s face began to split with panic. He wondered if it was something in his eyes. “But they’re just the start.”

She forced her composure into a growl. “As if you could even - ”

Yoosung picked the gun back up, took careful aim from his spot on the floor, and landed a bullet in her leg. He had to thank Vanderwood for accuracy training, at the very least. The woman screamed as her shin likely split from the impact, but Yoosung didn’t wait, quickly landing a second in her other leg, rendering her collapsed on the floor.

Grabbing the scissors and syringe, he walked over to her, deaf to her sudden cries of mercy, realization and fear dawning over her face as she realized Yoosung had absolutely no intent to kill her — and even if she did die, it would not be for a while.

“Just kill me, I sweat I didn’t even touch her, just pull the - ”

Yoosung sunk to his knees and slammed the syringe into her neck, cutting off her screams as she instead gagged in pain.

“This’ll take a minute to set in, but I suppose some pain can’t wait.” Yoosung grabbed her hands, straddling her back with one arm pinned under his leg, pushing the other in front of her face, holding her wrist to keep it down. “Either way, you’re going to _watch_ and see what happens when people try to get between me and my lover.”

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m s - ”

“ _Then you shouldn’t have done it in the first place_!” he shouted, wedging a finger between the scissors blades and grinding them down. Blood spurted in harmony with her screams of pain and the warmth in Yoosung’s spine continued to spread.

 _This is it_ , he thought, _this must be… the real me._

The warm fogginess retreated only when there was total silence, the woman’s screams ended and likely for good. Letting the scissors drop to the side, he ran a hand over his face, pushing his hair away to see exactly what he had done. The blood was still warm and running from several severed fingers, which had been cleanly cut despite the blunt scissors blade, blades not made for cutting bone. Standing to his feet, he felt slightly shaky, coming down from some kind of adrenaline high. The warm feeling was fading fast, leaving his skin shivering.

“MC?”

She turned her head, mouth turning up in a relieved yet still terrified smile. “Y-Yoosung?”

He fell to his knees, desperate to finish his rescue mission, to let her be free once more and in his arms. Once her hands were untied, she ripped the blindfold from her face and looked at Yoosung, golden eyes wide with relief and that familiar look of love.

_Yes… this is how it should be._

Once the restraints of her feet were cast aside, she threw herself into his arms, bringing them both to the floor of drying blood. Yoosung wrapped his arms tight around her shoulders, holding her as close as he physically could, endlessly glad she was alright and unhurt. He could feel her back jumping in quiet sobs, and somehow he held her even tighter, wanting to assure her she was safe.

She was safe as long as she was with him.

After a while, she turned her head and caught sight of her kidnapper laying motionless on the floor in an impressive pool of blood, both hands vastly fingerless. She leaned up to look Yoosung in the eyes, pushing his blond hair — starting to show its roots, he wondered if he should just grow it out — away, smiling gently. “You did that… for me?”

If he had been worried she’d be disgusted or disappointed, he wasn’t any more. He smiled brightly and nodded. “Just for you! She had to learn her lesson that no one can touch you but me.”

She pecked his lips, a quiet, “Thank you,” trailing on her breath. A new sensation of warmth began to spread through Yoosung, this time starting at his heart.

They got to their feet and MC helped Yoosung gather his few things before emerging from the building. At some point it had started to rain, so Yoosung wrapped his jacket around MC’s shoulders. As they picked their way over the rubble to the broken wall where Seven had caught Yoosung, Yoosung found the place empty, any trail of blood washed away by the dark rain. Yoosung frowned at the vacant spot, scrunching his nose in frustration.

Seven had likely crawled his way back to the hideout with the others and reported what happened, which meant they’d be coming after Yoosung. He didn’t now much how real life worked, but he guessed real-life people didn’t react as kindly to someone shooting them in both hands as people did in video-games.

“MC…” he started, hesitating, taking her hand in his own, not meeting her eyes. “We… we can’t go back. I know I’m… not welcome anymore… And I - ”

She intertwined their fingers, leaning close to his side. “As long as I’m with you, I don’t care about the others. You’ll protect me, won’t you?”

He felt his heart swell and he smiled down at her, wanting to pull her closer and closer. “I’ll always protect you. No one will ever lay a finger on you or even say anything bad. I’ll take care of them.”

_The “real me”… I think I like him better._

**Author's Note:**

> annnd remember to check out the rest of [Mid's](http://midlangley.tumblr.com/) art bc it's still beautiful!!  
>   
> ...anyway I haven't written anything too too violent in a while so tbh this was... kind of fun to write... it's like home-territory for me lolol...


End file.
